The Safest States In America (And The Most Dangerous) Will Surprise You — Sorry, Mississippi

Do you live in one of the safest states in America? How about the most dangerous? In honor of National Safety Month, Wallet Hub has analyzed the safety of each of the 50 states, and the results may surprise you. According to Salon, Wallet Hub didn't just consider violence and crime rates, although that certainly played a factor. Safety was quantified by the amount of assaults and fatal work injuries per 100,000 state residents as well as the number of residents without health insurance.Despite Detroit's reputation for being a close approximation of Mad Max, Michigan didn't place on the most dangerous list. It didn't place on the safest, either, but that's less surprising considering that the state contains the city with the highest murder rate and violent crime rate in the United States. According to Wallet Hub, the top five most dangerous states in the country are as follows:

1. Mississippi

2. South Carolina

3. Oklahoma

4. Tennesse

5. New Mexico

Really? New Mexico? Walter White must have been a bigger inspiration to the population than I thought, because it ranked 49th in terms of community safety. The study also found that Mississippi had one of the worst workplace safety rankings, second only to North Dakota, and Oklahoma had the most property damage due to natural disasters. Although Texas didn't make it to the list of overall most dangerous, the infamously conservative state had the largest number of residents without health insurance. Presumably they either don't ever get sick, or the prevailing attitude toward illness is along the lines of the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

The top five safest places, on the other hand, are pretty much exactly what you'd expect:

1. Massachusetts

2. Vermont

3. Minnesota

4. New Hampshire

5. Hawaii

Vermont and Minnesota tied for the fifth lowest employment rate, and Hawaii is second only to Massachusetts in terms of lowest amount of uninsured residents. Speaking of Massachusetts, it appears to be some sort of paradise on earth: the state has the best road safety in the nation, the second fewest rate of fatal workplace accidents, and one of the lowest rates of bullying. If I weren't so terrified of cold weather, I'd be packing my bags by the end of this sentence.

If your state wasn't mentioned above, you can take a look at the map below, or read the more detailed findings on the Wallet Hub website.